Braga Brothers Collection - Contents List Continued

The earliest records in the Braga Brothers Collection date to 1860 and bear the name of a commission merchant, Lewis Benjamin.
Benjamin was one of many traders buying and selling a variety of commodities in Manhattan's vibrant financial district. In
1873, Benjamin and Joaquín Rionda y Polledo (1850-1889) formed the partnership of Benjamin, Rionda and Company. Joaquín Rionda
was the middle brother in a family of six sisters (Maria, Isidora, Gregoria, Ramona, Concepción, and Bibiana) and three brothers
(Francisco, Joaquín and Manuel), offspring of Don Bernardo de la Rionda y Alvarez and Doña Josefa Polledo y Mata. All were
born in the village of Noreña in the Oviedo district of Asturias.

The eldest brother, Francisco (1844-1898), resided in Cuba most of his life. It is uncertain when he arrived in Cuba, but
he worked with his uncle, Joaquín Polledo, in the firm Polledo, Rionda and Company. The company was a sugar export house with
its office and warehouse in Matanzas. The family also owned sugar plantations near that Cuban port. By 1875, Francisco had
married Elena de la Torriente, the daughter of one of Cuba's wealthiest sugar barons. His father-in-law, Cosmé de la Torriente,
awarded him management of a sugar estate dubbed La Elena after Francisco's bride.

The Polledos and Riondas also enjoyed a long and profitable association with George S. Hunt, owner of the Eagle Sugar Refinery
at Portland, Maine. In addition to the refinery, Hunt operated a fleet of ships that traded primarily in Maine lumber products
and Cuban sugar and molasses. Hunt took under his wing Joaquín and Manuel when they came to America and oversaw their preparation
for the business world. Joaquín spent his adolescent years at the Abbott School in Farmington, Maine, before he settled in
New York City. Manuel (1854-1943) left Spain in 1870 and followed Joaquín at the Abbott School before joining his brother
at Benjamin, Rionda and Company in 1874.

In the meantime, Francisco and his uncle enlarged their Cuban sugar holdings. By 1877, they had acquired the Central China
and contracted with Franklin Farrel of the Farrel Foundry and Machine Company of Ansonia, Connecticut, to modernize the estate's
industrial plant. However, debts incurred by the purchase of expensive mill machinery, coupled with declining sugar prices,
forced the bankruptcy of Polledo, Rionda and Co. in December, 1878. $400,000 of that debt was to Rionda, Benjamin and Co.

As part of a 1880 court settlement of Polledo, Rionda's remaining assets, the Rionda brothers acquired the Central China and
the Matanzas warehouses. Joaquín subsequently moved to Cuba to take charge of the Central China. Francisco continued at the
Elena estate until the de la Torrientes sold it. He then joined Joaquín at the Central China. Manuel also moved to Cuba and
assumed control of the Matanzas warehouses for a brief period. While all three of the brothers were in Cuba, the New York
business was left in the hands of a partner, Hugh Kelly.

Quickly, though, the business network began to crumble. By 1883, Rionda, Benjamin and Co. was declared insolvent. Manuel returned
to New York and attempted a new partnership with Kelly, but that lasted only a year. The Matanzas operations also failed and
the Central China eventually became the property of the New York Sugar Manufacturing Company, established by Farrell, Kelly
and Lewis Cooke.

The Riondas then focused their energies on sugar properties they acquired in the vicinity of Sancti Spiritus in Santa Clara
province. Manuel returned to Cuba briefly to work with his brothers. By 1886, though, he was back in New York working with
the firm of J. M. Ceballos and Co. The record trail in Record Group 1, however, stops in 1885. Record Group 2 starts in 1895, and there are no records in the collection for the intervening years. The memoirs and recollections of family
members (see also: Addendum) recount the history of the intervening years.

Record Group 1 of the Braga Brothers Collection is a valuable resource for studies of early North American investments in
the Cuban sugar industry. It also documents the Spanish communities in the United States and Cuba and the important role they
played in the development of Cuba's sugar industry. The Benjamins' business interests are also well documented in the correspondence
with Lewin and Sohr of Antwerp and Truninger and Company of London. Record Group 1 includes correspondence, bound and unbound
business records, shipping contracts and other maritime documents, legal papers, and trade circulars. A small amount of family
correspondence can also be found.

Series 6 includes cargo pouches, charter parties, maritime protests, insurance policies, and contractual records. The largest
part of the collection consists of cargo pouches. The original pouch envelopes, many of which were wrapped in bundles marked
"consignment envelopes," have been retained.

Box 6 contains insurance policies, receipts and ledgers (1870-1885) related to ships, cargoes on ships, and cargoes stored
in wharves and bulkheads. The ledger entitled "Marine Insurance G.R. and Co." lists vessels with merchandise, exit ports,
dates and amounts of insurance (in gold or currency), and compliments material found in many of the cargo pouches.

The majority of the maritime papers are written in English with some in Spanish and a few in French and German.

Series 31 consists primarily of business correspondence received at the early Rionda trading houses in New York City. Also
included in the series are copies of letters sent from the trading houses, but most of the outgoing correspondence will be
found in the letterbooks in Series 32. Some internal business correspondence, including memoranda, is also found along with
contracts and other business documents. The series also contains a small number of private letters and documents from family
members in Spain and Cuba. The majority of letters revolve around the purchase and sale of various commodities, including
sugar. The Riondas interest in sugar production factors more heavily in the later years of the series. Of particular interest
are the letters and documents related to the modernization of several mills in the 1880s. Discussion related to the abolition
of slavery can be found in the correspondence of the brothers, most notably in 1879.

The materials were bundled with titles and dates written on the bundle wrappers. Unless otherwise noted in brackets, the folder
titles here are the same as those that were on the wrappers. About a tenth of the series was found loose with no identification.
Those letters have been arranged by date and marked in the contents lists with an asterisk. A considerable portion of the
series was lost to rodent damage.

Legal size documents are in box 8, oversize documents in box 9.

Box

8

Dept. of State claim of Wolf, Hoffnung and Levi, British subjects [legal size]. 1864

1

[Two letters]. 1869

1

[Miscellaneous correspondence]. Not dated

1

[Correspondence].* 1872 Feb-Mar

1

Compositions in English,. 1872

1

Correspondencia desde Deciembre a Enero 24,. 1872, 1873

8

[Miscellaneous documents l [legal]. 1872-1874

1

Taken from envelope marked "BAIZ" and addressed to Isaac Phillips. 1872-1875

1

[Found in unmarked bundle]. 1872-1876

1

Versos (miscellaneous). 1872-1877

1

[Correspondence found in bundle marked 1872]. 1873

1

Enero-Febrero. 1873

1

Correspondencia Enero 2 a [February 18]. 1873

1

Correspondencia hasta Marzo 31. 1873

1

Letters from February to December. 1873

1

[June to December]. 1873

1

Letters of L, Benjamin from August to October. 1873

1

[November-December}. 1873

1

Private letter. 1873, 1874

1

Letters of Francisco Rionda from August 1873 to September 1874. 1873-1874

Series 32 consists of twenty letterbooks containing copies of outgoing correspondence from the Rionda trading houses in New
York City. Eight of the volumes contain letters from Rionda, Benjamin and Co., exclusively, while the remainder carry correspondence
from various houses. A small amount of personal and family correspondence is also included.

The letterbooks do not form a continuous series and there is considerable overlapping of dates. Special care should be taken
when looking for specific dates.

In general the records of this series are in good condition, with only minor mutilation and some ink fading.

Series 33 consists of trade circulars and market reports received by the various firms associated with Record Group 1, including
Rionda, Benjamin and Company. Most of the circulars and reports relate to the sugar trade and were issued in the United States,
Cuba, and Europe. There are also publications on other commodities traded by Rionda, Benjamin.

Series 34 contains the ledgers, journals, and other bound financial records of Benjamin, Rionda and Company and several related
firms. An interesting feature of this series is the inclusion of several items from the years prior to Joaquin Rionda's partnership
with Lewis Benjamin. This includes ledgers from A. Wolf, one of several business associates of Lewis Benjamin. The series
also contains a cashbook for the Central China.

Most of the daily correspondence of the Rionda trading houses was in the form of international cables. The availability of
cheap telegrahpic messaging allowed smaller and newer firms as Rionda, Benjamin and Company to compete with older established
firms. Cable messages relayed the price and availability of specific commodities. To save money, commercial codes were employed
to reduce the number of letters used in a single cable. Series 59 contains only a sampling of the hundreds of thousands of
largely undeciperable cables originally foound in the collection. Series 59 contains several telegraph code books employed
by Rionda, Benjamin and Company and Gomez, Rionda and Company, a cable book containing copies of outgoing cable messages,
and some examples of incoming cables.